[3.10] LL Archmage Storm Brand MoM Hierophant (RETIRED)

Highest DPS support that you can swap to is most likely added cold damage. But yes, best dps supports are all blue, so eventually to minmax you will need to get Vorici in Research for that white socket.

Still, I'd say it's well worth the trouble to use chains.

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Chain seems nice but what green gem would you swap in for single target unless you have a white slot? Only thing I could think of is hypothermia and use something like Frost Breath / Vortex / WO to keep chill up.

I can't think of any. Hypo seems unreliable without a direct source of chill. Think it's better to just get 6B, then get one vorici white, and swap in chain from then instead of conc.

First off, thanks for sharing the build! Was wondering what to run for Brand since I was using SisterHell's MF brand build but they aren't planning to update for legion.

That being said some changes to consider:

Swap out the mana regen Watcher's Eye for a 40-60% Lightning Damage one(Eldritch Battery makes mana regen moot). Get lightning pen on it too if you can afford it.

The Devouring Diadem late game to free up 2 points on the tree.

Look at getting something like and Slapping in your preferred skill to proc fortify.

Personally planning to use Charged Dash-Faster Attacks-Cast While Channeling Support-Brand Recall. Should work fairly well to keep Fortify up since Charged Dash requires little to no Accuracy (have had issues with Shield Charge not hitting anything even though i just charged through a pack of enemies) as well as triggering Brand Recall whenever it's up as long as we are Dashing which we should be unless we are recasting Brands.

Just noticed something odd, Storm Brand is affected by Area Damage but not Area of Effect. Would that make it worthwhile to drop the Area of Effect/Area Damage nodes for something else?

Same for the mana regen nodes. Put those into Energy Shield Recharge nodes instead (Faith and Steel, Essence Surge if you don't plan to use a Devouring Diadem, Arcane Focus or even Ethereal Feast though it'd take alot tor each that one).

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Swap out the mana regen Watcher's Eye for a 40-60% Lightning Damage one(Eldritch Battery makes mana regen moot). Get lightning pen on it too if you can afford it.

I don't have a mana regen watcher's eye. I have a mana leech one. Without that leech, I'll have 0 mana a minute into the map with no way to recover it except a mana flask. If I'm no low mana my ehp dips, I lost onslaught from omeyocan and casting gets annoying because the ES by itself is not enough to sustain mana costs (cause of MoM).

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The Devouring Diadem late game to free up 2 points on the tree.

The fossil crafted hubris gives 8% more damage, life. Potentially res, stats. That's far more than what 2 passives get you.

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Look at getting something like

Then I lose omeyocan. no perma onslaught, less mana(= less ehp), no attack and spell dodge. Also lightning warp feels really good with this much cast speed.

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Personally planning to use Charged Dash-Faster Attacks-Cast While Channeling Support-Brand Recall. Should work fairly well to keep Fortify up since Charged Dash requires little to no Accuracy (have had issues with Shield Charge not hitting anything even though i just charged through a pack of enemies) as well as triggering Brand Recall whenever it's up as long as we are Dashing which we should be unless we are recasting Brands.

I don't think that's a good idea. You're giving up on the ability to manually burst something instantly by automating brand recall. charged dash is clunky in itself. Having to stop and channel it will kill clearspeed and make bosses more dangerous I think.

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Just noticed something odd, Storm Brand is affected by Area Damage but not Area of Effect. Would that make it worthwhile to drop the Area of Effect/Area Damage nodes for something else?

I didn't know this. Source?

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Same for the mana regen nodes. Put those into Energy Shield Recharge nodes instead (Faith and Steel, Essence Surge if you don't plan to use a Devouring Diadem, Arcane Focus or even Ethereal Feast though it'd take alot tor each that one).

I don't have any mana regen nodes. Only maximum mana nodes. Those are needed for max ehp.

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I don't have a mana regen watcher's eye. I have a mana leech one. Without that leech, I'll have 0 mana a minute into the map with no way to recover it except a mana flask. If I'm no low mana my ehp dips, I lost onslaught from omeyocan and casting gets annoying because the ES by itself is not enough to sustain mana costs (cause of MoM).

Sorry, meant mana leech. Haven't been able to afford an Omeyocan yet. May end up just upgrading my Dance of the Offered boots next time I get the sacrificial table rank 3 since the Vial is only 1Alch-1c at the moment vs 100c+ for Omeyocan.

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The fossil crafted hubris gives 8% more damage, life. Potentially res, stats. That's far more than what 2 passives get you.

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Then I lose omeyocan. no perma onslaught, less mana(= less ehp), no attack and spell dodge. Also lightning warp feels really good with this much cast speed.

Fair enough, I wasn't sure if you could potentially gain more due to Feast of Flesh, Larger Energy Shield Pool + the chance on cast to start your energy shield recharge. Plus if you decide to run other auras or a blasphemy curse setup it could add another bit of synergy and help negate some of essence wurm's +40% reserved mana to all auras not socketed in it. Have honestly tweaked the build a lot since I don't have the Omeyacon boots to build around.

Thought maybe the Fortify buff would be enough to help negate enough damage that MoM wouldn't completely drain our energy shield. That being said, would it be better to go for the Acrobatics nodes for more dodge instead of MoM? Would have to drop some damage nodes but would the extra dodge make it worth the trade?

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I don't think that's a good idea. You're giving up on the ability to manually burst something instantly by automating brand recall. charged dash is clunky in itself. Having to stop and channel it will kill clearspeed and make bosses more dangerous I think.

Having tried it for most of last night, I can definitely agree with this hehe. Was just an odd idea I had. Was nice having Brand Recall auto cast, but as you said, it made it also feel kind of clunky and not as on demand bursty. Dropped Brand Recall from the links and swapped in Enfeeble. Works much smoother that way. Can also then use whatever attack skill you want to trigger fortify and Enfeeble if one decides to use this or doesn't have the Omeyacon boots yet and would like some extra tankiness.

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Just noticed something odd, Storm Brand is affected by Area Damage but not Area of Effect. Would that make it worthwhile to drop the Area of Effect/Area Damage nodes for something else?

I didn't know this. Source?

In PoB, if you mouse over nodes that give Increased Area of Effect(such as Apmlify) while having Storm Brand selected as your main skill, there's no +# AoE Radius in the 'You will gain this by allocating this node' window. How ever add Armageddon Brand and make it your main skill then add/mouse over Amplify and it will show +1 AoE Radius.

While nothing official there is https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2265357/page/1#p16061172 It's still pretty much up in the air but there are couple posts mentioning how (if i'm understanding it correctly) it only does AoE damage to 'nearby' enemies and thus it's radius isn't increased by 'Increased Area of Effect'. I could be totally wrong here though, so will try and test it some with an Increased Area of Effect support gem when I can get on. Though PoB shows that Increased Area of Effect support gem also doesn't seem to increase it's radius at all compared to Armageddon Brand.

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I don't have any mana regen nodes. Only maximum mana nodes. Those are needed for max ehp.

3 Node for Quick Recovery though I guess you're taking those for the increased max Life?

Anyways was just tossing ideas out that could change the build for various play styles and gear. Thank's for explaining several things to me as well! :D

Edit: Been playing around with Increased Area of Effect support and swapping it out with concentrated effect. It looks like it only increases the AoE Radius of the beams Storm Brand fires. That being said, the increase really doesn't seem that large compared to other skills that benefit from +3 radius such as cyclone or Curses even.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/aygdlo/how_does_storm_brand_interakt_with_inc_aoe/ Just found this as well. So that kind of confirms what I'm seeing in game swapping between ConcEffect and IncAoE supports. Though in game it look's like instead of getting a full +1 Radius it maybe gets +0.5 Radius.

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May end up just upgrading my Dance of the Offered boots next time I get the sacrificial table rank 3 since the Vial is only 1Alch-1c at the moment vs 100c+ for Omeyocan.

Ye that's a good way to make money too if you get the upgrade chamber.

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would it be better to go for the Acrobatics nodes for more dodge instead of MoM? Would have to drop some damage nodes but would the extra dodge make it worth the trade?

No dodge chance won't mean shit if you get one shot from dropping ehp.

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3 Node for Quick Recovery though I guess you're taking those for the increased max Life?

Yes.


Tree changes:

Dropped Heart of thunder, Alchemist and Blast Radius for Purity of Flesh, Arcane Potency and Purity of will. Thanks, I didn't know about the area thing.

Thank you so much for the guide.
I really like storm brand and brand skills but I have never chance to try them because do not have much time for game, only 1 build for 1 league (hardworking Q.Q).
Definitely will try this build at the next league.
Please update this guide for the next league if it's possible. ^^~.

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Please update this guide for the next league if it's possible. ^^~.

I'll try! Thank you.

Would you mind updating this build for 3.8? I'm curious to see how the mana changes will affect spellcaster gameplay.

No more leech from Watcher's Eye mod, apparently we will have to cap mana regen from nodes to sustain our survivability or use a mana flask :/ But! We do have somes nodes that increase the effect of Arcane Surge on us and also provide mana regen. A new node also combos with the Ascendancy buffs to provide increased spell damage per 100 mana, up to 40%.

Overall, I'd say that we need to reroute the skill tree to be mana efficient now, or use a mana flask and deal with the DPS loss which is unnaceptable! xD
Switching Omeyocan to rare boots is also an option, and fixes almost all of our new mana problems.